The US Coronavirus cases have surpassed 600,000 mark with over 26,000 deaths due to COVID-19 outbreak. Among all other places in the US, New York has become the new epicentre of the outbreak in the country with more than 7,000 fatalities.
Now, a paediatrician has revealed that New York children may have already been infected by the virus and currently serving as vectors to spread the disease.
New York Coronavirus
The new revelation came from Dr Dyan Hes at New York City's Gramercy Pediatrics. Hes advised parents to assume that their children have been infected by the Coronavirus if they show even mild symptoms which are related to the COVID-19.
During an interview with CBS News, she said it is possible that 80 percent of the New York Children have Coronavirus. She said, "We are not testing children. We have to assume, if they are sick, they have coronavirus. Most of them, probably 80 to 90 percent of them, are asymptomatic."
Hes revealed that the actual number of infected children is not recorded as many of them do not show any symptom for the Coronavirus which could alter the COVID-19 mortality rate. She said, "I think that the mortality rate is way, way less than 0.5 percent for children who have it because it is so prevalent. You have to remember thousands of kids die from flu a year. This is much, much less virulent in children."
Transfer of Coronavirus
As per Hes now the bigger risk is the virus being transferred by infected children unknowingly which put the elderly and people with underlying health conditions into more vulnerable situation. While explaining the health issue she mentioned that children are so asymptomatic that they are spreading it and the mistake was authorities did not close the schools at the right moment. "So, the children were the vectors to the teachers, who might be elderly or immunocompromised," she added.
She advised that the parents should take their children to a doctor for scheduled vaccine visits or if they notice shortness of breath. She mentioned that parents have to keep their children at home for 14 days and keep following social distancing. As per Hes, "When they go back out, if they're above age 2, they should be wearing masks."
However, a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from April 6 claimed that children rarely contract severe illness from the Coronavirus and they might not even display a fever or a cough which are the basic symptoms of the COVID-19.
As of April 2, there are 2,572 Children who got infected by the deadly virus which is about 1.7 percent of the overall Coronavirus cases. But Hes claimed that the actual numbers of infected children are not known due to the availability of limited testing and the virus is considered a minor threat to the children.
She told CBS that she had patients whose parents have Coronavirus and the child has a 102.5 F fever. "At the beginning when we were doing this, we were sending them to the ER. They got turned away. They were not tested because we do not have enough tests and the kids are doing well," she said.
